Guardians Play
Well, sort of. Have I mentioned how emotionally, agonizingly painful it is to watch this team play? You spend the whole game waiting for something to go wrong as you NEVER have any cushion at all to make your feel safe and, even when something bad doesn't happen, you end up not feeling like you had a good time watching the game. For a team like this, it is better that they would have not signed Bell and Zunino, not traded Jones and Benson and just began the season with a 20 game losing streak to eliminate any possibility of making the playoffs. Then we could have all just watched and rooted for our hometown team without the specter of having to worry about winning any particular game...just like in the 80s. But where we have been this entire season is waiting for a spark, a hot streak, that would allow us to pass Minnesota. But it never comes. Something (stupid signings and damaging trades, injuries, bad performances, bad luck) always derails that hot streak. And it makes these types of games agonizing because you know, I mean really know, that it wouldn't have taken 9 Shohei Ohtanis in your lineup to win this game. Just 9 guys who can perform offensively when it is needed and not totally screw up the moment being 'that guy' who hits a fly ball when it isn't needed and strikes out whan a fly ball is needed, for example (cough! Arias. cough!).
So was the case last night. Bad clutch hitting, bad closing...just enough to make us lose against a struggling, depleted Angels team. Really frustrating as we hung on to the slim hope of making the playoffs.
Frustrating, exasperating, anguishing, disappointing, all the 'ings' that you can think of that express what this season has been to the fans.
Crickets Chirping
As I write this, Cam Gallagher, Kole Calhoun and Ramon Laureano are still members of the Cleveland Guardians.
Why?
At this point of this season for the Guardians they should have two kinds of guys on their active roster: guys helping them win this year and guys helping them win next year. These three are doing neither. After Saturday night you can likely add Lucas Giolito to this group although, if he goes 6 innings a start, he does serve SOME purpose: to save the arms of the young starters and the bullpen, although rentals Moore and Lopez should be used as heavily as we can to save our bullpen arms for next year, as well. If Giolito can't go 6 innings a start then dump him because, frankly, another start like his last one against Minnesota is the polar opposite of helpful, just ask David Fry's right arm.
But, you say, that would be a very bush league thing to do: bring these guys in off waivers (and Calhoun via a minor league trade) and then cut them just a couple of weeks after acquiring them, making it impossible for them to play for someone else in the post-season. Yeah, you might take it that way. I will just write that off to a stupid front office.
Basically, this is the reality of what the Guardians have done and now they need to do what is best for the future of the Cleveland Guardians and own the consequences of their actions before. If we had been TRULY worried about what it would mean to bring in these guys with our slim chances of making the playoffs after giving away Bell, Rosario and Civale (yes, I said, giving them away for very little or no return) and then not make a serious run at the playoffs then we wouldn't have done it in the first place. So do we eat the rest of the season and let these AAAA players continue to burn through experience that young players could use or do we do what is right for the Cleveland Guardians of 2024 despite how stupid it looks and how the rest of baseball just laughs at or scorns us? Again, you do what is right for the 2024 Guardians and get rid of these guys and replace them with prospects to get those guys their 'firsts'. That is, if the intent is to roster those guys this winter and they have already used their minor league option this year.
To me it is simple: DFA Gallagher, Laureano and Calhoun today. Bring up Lavastida, Rodriguez and Noel today. I would like to bring up Rocchio, as well, but none of our MIFers except Arias have been trained to play the OF. I would DFA Giolito right now but if you want to wait until his Saturday start is done then, fine. But if his start Saturday is terrible, I bring up Cantillo just to get his feet wet this season.
There is no other rational choice here. None. Bring up the young guys, play the young guys. Dump the old, unproductive guys Do it now.
Pension Realities
Gosh, I love Rick Manning as a color commentator. He pulls no punches and says, sometimes, what we are all thinking. But the guy needs to get his facts straight.
He says Calhoun needs just a little more service time to get to 10 years and that 10 years is, somehow, a magical number regarding the MLB pension plan. Well, from what I have read, Manning is wrong.
The pension plan contains a graduated scale. The longer you play, the larger your pension benefit...until you get to 10 years MLB experience and then it doesn't get any larger. Those 10 years are broken into 40 quarters of 43 days each for an in-season total of 172 days per season. If you stay on a ML roster for 43 days during your career you receive a pension starting at age 62 of about $34,000 a year. If you get to 10 years, your pension is $100,000 a year. So, only a $66,000 difference per year between 43 days of service in the majors and being a 10 year veteran. So the big jump in pension goes from 42 days (no pension) to 43 days ($34,000). The rest, up to 10 years, is graduated, soooo....
Calhoun is now at 9.75 years. Right now his annual pension would be $95,000 a year at age 62 (less, like social security, if he takes his pension starting when he officially retires) whereas if he would get 43 more days (not possible this year) he would be at $100,000 a year for his 10 years of service time. After he gets to 10 years his pension can't get any larger no matter how long he plays.
The truth is that this 10 year threshold is more symbolic than anything else as less than 10% of guys who played in the majors reach that level of service time. It isn't like his pension goes from $50,000 a year to $100,000 a year if he gets those additional 43 days.
For a guy who has made over $50 million during his playing career, I am not at all impacted by cutting him today and making him earn that other $5000 a year in pension playing for another team. So, despite what Manning says, cutting Calhoun right now is a non-issue, empathically, for me. If it makes sense to keep him for clubhouse stability at the end of the bench and only use him in late inning PH situations, fine. But if he blocking some rookie from getting his ML feet wet, then cut Calhoun today. I don't lose any sleep over that as the amount of money it costs Calhoun is really small.
Instructional League Info...please!
Information from the instructional league is so limited I have been tempted to just rent a place in Goodyear for a month and just mine for information. Most important to me, right now, is how our injured pitchers are doing AND to find out if Alex Clemmey is hurt, if so how badly and if not, how he's doing. Yeah, it's nice to see the guys putting in the work. Watching spring training this year you could see some things that translated into failures during the season. You could also tell, by the daily schedule, which pitchers and players were hurt.
So we need information from the instructs, real, unfiltered information that tells us the status of our top prospects, including the guys brought over from the Dominican who had good seasons there. Just don't know how to get it. Todd Paquette, any ideas?
A and A+ Seaons End This Weekend...Any Promotions to AA and trickle up promotions to AAA coming?
With the A ball seasons ending this weekend and the AA season going through next weekend and the AAA season going for 3 more weeks, I would like to see some promotions. Here are a few guys I would like to see brought up:
Ryan Webb, Chase DeLauter, Khalil Watson, Jake Fox and Lenny Torres, Jr. brought up to AA
Juan Brito, Petey Halpin and Franco Aleman up to AAA and Randy LaBaut returned to AAA.
I would just like to see the season extended for these guys to give them more reps. Maybe with the pitchers the Guardians just want these guys to be done and start their off-season conditioning or maybe there is some intent to send some of these guys to the Arizona Fall League in November so they don't need the extra reps these promotions would give them. Maybe they don't want to risk pitcher injuries by putting tired players at higher levels where they might get injured trying to up their game to the next level...or even just get their confidence busted by getting shown up at that next level.
But, as a fan, I would like to see these promotions.
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